“Since Victory in Europe Day (VE-Day), two generations ago, writers of fact and fiction have crafted words to show Canadians what the war over there and back here looked, sounded and felt like. For the first time since novelist Farley Mowat and historian G.W.L. Nicholson put the liberation of Italy in print for Canadians, Laurel Deedrick-Mayne has delivered the starkness of the campaign on the Sicilian and Italian fronts and the anxiety of loved-ones at home in Canada, all in the same work. It’s as if she lived the roles of her protagonists – William, Robert and Annie – by being there. Her research was there. Her imagination takes us deeper. Brava Laurel!”
– Ted Barris, author of The Great Escape: A Canadian Story
Friends William, Robert, and Annie are on the cusp of adulthood while the world is on the brink of war. It is a Canadian summer in 1939 and Robert and Annie’s love has blossomed, even as the inevitability of the boys joining up means separation and the first of many losses. Fearing he might not return, Robert makes William promise to take care of Annie. Every arena of their lives is infiltrated by the war, from the home front to the underground of queer London to the bloody battlefields of Italy. Even in the aftermath, in the shadow of The Dreamland, these friends fight their own inner battles: to have faith in their right to love and be loved, to honour their promises and ultimately find their way “home.”
